


Surface tensions

by Artemis_Crimson



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I guess? I'm going to keep trying to write shepard as a revenant until I get it right so, Insomnia, Post-Mass Effect 2, Pre-Mass Effect 3, Shepard's canonical death, Undeath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 20:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17066150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Crimson/pseuds/Artemis_Crimson
Summary: In which she can't die anymore





	Surface tensions

Shepard’s cosy confinement Earthside had a pool for laps. Shiny, pristine and mirror slick. She was alone (relatively) when she finally caved in and disturbed it, bored of treadmills and endless pushups. Her cybernetics made her heavier than she was used to, she sank right to the bottom now instead of floating gently, her buoyancy all off. (She hoped no one heard her startled squeak when she’d hopped into the deep end). They made her stronger too, and now it took an irritatingly long time to exhaust herself. Oh sure it was great in a firefight, she could pick up Grunt one handed now if she pleased (and if only he was around.) 

It was terrible for twitchy soldiers stuck in too pretty too small apartment-cells who couldn’t sleep at the best of times.  
(She’d tried to see how long she could go without sleep once while she was stuck here and ended up beating the sustained deprivation record easily with a full fortnight conscious. It was awful.)  
Shepard flew through lap after lap after lap, blind flip at each end, never pausing for air. It felt like years before the strain set in proper and her arms started to shake. Tired at last, she took a gasp of air and her break by sinking to the bottom of the pool.

Shepard couldn’t decided if she liked swimming anymore, it reminded her of being stuck in space fighting the pull of the vacuum for each breath. It reminded her of the heart stopping free-fall she never truly got to finish.  
So she shouldn’t like it.  
But she always looked back on her last memories of her old life with fondness. From the first hazy blinks of her new one to today she did like it. The calm of everyone she could have helped being safe and hidden away in their escape pods, the hope she’d manage to hang on and find a place to squirrel away before rescue came. Even the terror of sound’s sudden reemergence brought by air racing away. The fatalistic acceptance of her endpoint she'd long ago made peace with.  
Truth be told as she drifted towards a planet she couldn’t remember the name of, then or now, Shepard hadn’t felt half so alive then since she stared down Sovereign so long ago.

She blew an idle bubble at the barely rippling surface, reclining back on the tiny tiles that wouldn't even leave a pattern on her skin, watching the water still to glass like it had been before she’d jumped in. She wondered if her lungs would start to burn or if her guards would panic first.

**Author's Note:**

> I will figure out an effective (eyy) way to make a cyborg space lich story and none of you can stop me, tips welcome though


End file.
